Icy streets in Dallas, Snow in London

It’s cold this morning in Dallas, but the streets appear to be passible, and I don’t anticipate any problems getting to work. Unlike some folks in other parts of the world, who (apparently due to something Liberals call “global warming”) are have some genuine difficulty with unusually cold weather.

I got an email from a fellow in the UK (interesting guy named Martin Avis who writes an internet marketing newsletter) who was complaining about the weather in London today, and it’s effect on the trains. When the locals complain about the train service in London, it must be REALLY bad.

Having been in London three time in the last three decades, I was consistently underwhelmed by the dependability, reliability, and timeliness of their trains. In stark contrast to the trains in Germany and Belgium, which *always* arrived and departed within one minute of the scheduled times.

Which reminds me of my 1st trip to London, about 30 years ago. We arrived at the train station early (about 5am for a 6am scheduled train to the airport), and we were looking for a place to eat some breakfast. I came across a middle-aged man pushing a broom, and asked him if there was an open restaurant nearby.

His answer consisted of at least 50 syllables, not one of which I understood, although I’m certain it was all in English. Probably laid on the accent extra thick after noting that I was a Yank.

At 7am, we went to a ticket window to inquire about the 6am train and we were told that the train was never going to arrive, since it had derailed about 10km outside of London. The lady who told us that did not seem to think that sort of problem was at all unusual, or even remarkable enough to bother notifying anyone waiting for the 6am train. We had to take a taxicab to the airport, but we did manage to arrive (barely) in time to catch our flight. Interestingly, the taxicab fare was about the same as the train fare would have been. Since we were leaving the country, we tipped the driver with all of our remaining English currency, about 30 pounds. He did a heroic job of getting us there in time.

The 2nd and 3rd trips (2nd for business, 3rd as a stopover for a North Sea cruise) were not an improvement. The trains were consistently so late that I had to plan to be at my destination at least one hour early in order to make it no more than an hour late. At least I was able to take a chartered bus to the cruise departure. But by the 3rd trip to London, I knew better than to rely on train transport.

The trains were not the only problem, of course. The prices for everything were so far out of reason that I don’t understand why anybody would want to live in, work in, or even visit London. The only bright spot was that taxicab travel was inexpensive and an order of magnitude more dependable and comfortable than the trains.

I have no particular desire to visit London again.